Dying Light Online
by Arkadian Mercer
Summary: Keith Ledger is your typical stay-at-home gamer who is more than a little excited upon the release of the VRMMORPG, Sword Art Online. As he and his friends travel home to Japan to get their hands on pre-ordered copies, his computer-whizz friend Zachary reveals he's managed to create his own VRMMORPG using SAO as a base, Dying Light Online, the group's favoured retro game.
1. Chapter 1

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: " _we're all mad here_. _I'm mad_. _You're mad_."

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.

"You must be," said the Cat, " _or you wouldn't have come here_."

* * *

'Dude, guess what I got?'

Keith rolled his eyes before reluctantly looking up from his book and giving his best friend, Jason, _the look_. Jason, of course, was oblivious (or was at least pretending to be) to Keith's annoyance and stretched his unnaturally wide grin an inch wider. It was the day before the winter break and the rest of the class were chirping about cheerfully in their conversations as their teacher gave the last twenty minutes of the school day off to free time, much to everybody's excitement. Well, almost everybody. Keith wasn't one for conversations and going back to the uneventful book he brought for the day wasn't on his 'top things to do when bored' list.

Never the less, he hadn't seen Jason the whole day, and during class whenever he glanced over at him during the teacher's painful droning, Jason was always squirming uncomfortably, as if he had something he ever so desperately wanted to tell him. Scanning around, no one else seemed the least bit interested in their conversation, too busy engaged in their own. Even giant Mackenzie was too busy scribbling down profanities on paper planes with his friends to throw at everybody to be so much as throwing an intimidating glance Keith's way. Keith rolled his eyes again and sighed, meeting Jason's shakingly excited stare.

'What is it?' Keith asked, ready for Jason to spew how he finally nailed a crossbow trick shot in the Half Life 3 multiplayer.

Jason's grin started to edge into maliciousness, to such an extent Keith shifted on his seat uncomfortably.  
'I got this.' He whispered, snatching glances both ways before leaning over the desk and pulling up a disc box from within the inner pocket of his jacket.

Keith's heart hammered in his chest, the print on the cover was all too recognisable. Something he'd been waiting to see in the flesh for a _very long time.  
_ Immediately, he leaped forward and wrapped his arms around the box, staring Jason in the eye. 'What the hell's the matter with you?' He hissed through his teeth. 'Do you know what would happen if _anyone_ saw you holding this? You'd never make it home alive!'

A group of girls in the corner giggled, and Keith realised in the commotion that he was leaning a little _too_ close to Jason. Growling, he leapt back into his chair, giving Jason _the look_ like he never had before. Jason's grin continued, the box thankfully back within his jacket pocket.

'So what, you just came to rub it in my face?' Keith folded his arms and gave a huff before looking off away from Jason.

'I came to say I got you a copy.'

Keith's heart stopped for a second, he gagged for air and threw himself to face Jason. 'You- You did?' He stuttered. Nah, this was Jason he was thinking of, as if Jason would ever get Keith one of the most legendary-

Before his thoughts could finish, Jason slid an identical box across the desk towards Keith. He didn't even make an attempt to catch it as it clattered on top of his lap.

'So, you want to try it out?' Jason asked in an almost sing-song manner.

Keith looked down, the shadows spread down his face as his stare bored into the plastic, rectangular box sitting on his lap. It was his turn to grin.


	2. Chapter 2

Keith shifted in his seat. The Sky Magazine was about as interesting as it usually was, while the movies on the low quality monitor in front of him were at least a decade old. Jason nudged him with an elbow, and Keith locked his hands onto the rests and shuddering before quickly realising that the plane wasn't going through turbulence. Annoyed, he shot a glance sideways.

"What is it?" He hissed.

"Enjoy yourself a little, man! We're one in a thousand to get to play this game!" Jason nudged him again before flashing his trademark grin.

"Actually we're one in _ten_ thousand." A steady voice cut in from Keith's left side.  
Zachary thoughtfully pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

Keith glared at him and ripped the glasses off Zach's face before dropping it into the Sky Magazine pocket.

"Hey! What was that for?" Zach glared back at him.

"Everyone knows you don't need glasses, and they don't make you look smarter." Keith dropped the glare and rolled his eyes before slumping back in his seat, arms folded.

"Pff," Zach sat back himself. "I never said they did." He huffed.

The rest of the journey was in relative silence, after the pilot blanketed the plane with his raspy voice telling everyone that landing was commencing, Keith spoke up.

"Remind me why we need to go to Japan to play this thing?" He already knew the answer, but was bored enough to repeat the question for some sort of conversation.

"Server's only in Japan for now, dude." Jason ripped his eyes of an old cartoon episode playing in front of him. "They won't have servers back home for months, plus the flights to Japan are dirt cheap over the holidays. We'll rent out some of those box apartments and the journey will cost us practically a trip to the supermarket." He laid back, eyeing the no smoking and seatbelt sign that loomed in front of them.

Keith followed his gaze before slumping back once again. _Jace's right, I've come all this way, I may as well enjoy himself. Right?_  
 _Jace is eccentric at times, but for once, he is right._

About an hour later, the plane thumped against the landing strip with a thud, sending Keith sprawling around in his seat. The plane screeched to a stop, and the flight attendants materialised in the entranceways to guide everyone out.  
Keith didn't even look back when he grabbed Jason by his collar and dragged him away from the flight attendant he was trying to get a phone number from.

After the hours that were baggage claim, security checks and the taxi ride to their apartments, the trio had finally made it to where they wanted to be.  
Three doors no bigger than air duct panels adjacent to even more doors awaited in front of them. Zach tossed the other two their keys and got down on his knees to open his own. Inside was a room slightly bigger than a wardrobe turned on its side. Despite this, it had a bed, plug outlets, drawers and a sink. How they crammed all this into one tiny space was a miracle. Zach dropped his suitcase and zipped it open.

Inside that suitcase was something Keith was convinced, just a few days ago, he would never see in real life. Zach pulled out a set of Nerve Gear and handed it to Keith.


	3. Chapter 3

"-and then you just plug it into the socket and lie flat. When you hear a beep, just say 'link start' and the Nerve Gear will patch you into the server." Zach concluded his instructions as Keith looked down at the strange helmet in his arms. It was about as heavy as a small bowling ball, no wonder Zach emphasised that sitting upright with it on was a bad idea. The three stood in the hallway outside their cub rooms.

"Question." Keith stated without taking his eyes off his Nerve Gear. "If we connect to a Japanese server, how are we supposed to understand other players and stuff?"

Zach looked at him sideways. "Well if you watched enough anime, maybe you'd be able to speak Japanese."

Keith did look up at that, before giving him a bored look.

"Jeez, it was just a joke. If you must know, the Nerve Gear has a built in translator, it can simulate voices of speakers too."

"Simulate voices? What's that supposed to mean?" Jason butted in.

Zach rolled his eyes. "Say someone's speaking to you in Japanese, the Nerve Gear translates it to English, and uses samples from the speaker's voice in real time to make it sound like they're speaking English."

"Huh." Keith looked back down at his Nerve Gear. "That's pretty cool, actually."

"Course it is." Zach tossed Jason his Nerve Gear set. "I got something else for you guys too."

Keith and Jason peered over the edge of the bag as Zach reached in once again, this time producing a rectangular cartridge wrapped in cling film from a side pocket.

"And.. what's that supposed to be?" Jason gave the small box a strange look.

Zach rolled his eyes yet again before unwrapping it and inserting it into the slot on the back of his Nerve Gear. After a few seconds, the Nerve Gear gave a positive double beep.

Keith grabbed the cartridge out the air as Zach tossed it to him. "What's this thing?" He asked.

"Just plug it in."

Keith shrugged and stabbed the box into the slot himself before the Nerve Gear beeped twice, on which he lobbed it to Jason, who did the same.

Zach produced his glasses and dramatically swiped them onto his head.  
Keith rolled his eyes disapprovingly.  
Jason shook his head disapprovingly.

"Using my elite hacking skills, I have obtained the source code from Sword Art Online, and have used it to upload my very own compatible Nerve Gear game, Dying Light Online!" Zach whipped his head to the side, the light caught furiously in his glasses.

Keith stepped forward and plucked the glasses of Zach's head before slipping them into his trouser pocket.

Zach's ego died. "Hey, what the hell, man?"

Keith sighed before switching topic swiftly. "So, you stole the source code from Sword Art Online?"

"Not exactly.." Zach avoided Keith's eyes. "I sort've.. changed it."

"Changed it?" Keith folded his arms

"I broke into the servers and wrote some code of my own." Zach confessed.

"Great, so you've broken the game for everyone then." Jason breathed.

"No!" Zach said quickly. "The stuff I wrote was just basics for my game to work, if we connect to the Sword Art Online server, Dying Light Online could run separately from the SAO world, but has it's own code and location to work with the Nerve Gear. People playing Sword Art Online won't even notice the difference."

"Wait.. Dying Light Online? You don't mean.." Jason's eyes widened a little.

"Yeah, that's right." Zach regained his posture. "Dying Light, in virtual reality."


End file.
